Sensitive heart, you're doomed from the start
Meant to play the penitent part
Inquisitive mind, you're destined to find
Tempted fate and knowledge divine
View in there a pitied pair
Denoted by a scene unfair
Will you make my children bear
The consequences everywhere?

[Chorus]
Is it so hard to forgive the way
That we’ve been made to live?
how much is required to set things right?
Have you confused your power with mine?

Oh whoa oh

View in there a pitied pair
Denoted by a scene unfair
Will you make my children bear
The consequences everywhere?
Imminent you seem to be
a picture of fragility
What is it that you think of me?
Is it a woman that you see?

[Chorus x2]

Is it so hard to forgive the way
That we’ve been made to live?
how much is required to set things right?
Have you confused your power with mine?

5 Comments

My InterpretationNot sure of the attitude the band is coming from, but this is hard to read and not immediately think of the fall of man in Genesis.

"Inquisitive mind, you're destined to find
Tempted fate and knowledge divine" - The serpent tempts Adam and Eve with the knowledge of God

"View in there a pitied pair" - Adam and Eve
"Denoted by a scene unfair" - Sounds like the speaker believes the judgement was unfair?
"Will you make my children bear the consequences everywhere?" - Sin being passed down from generation to generation

Maybe my interpretation is way out of whack, and if not, there's a number of different things Tennis may be saying about the story. Either way, that's how I see the song.

General CommentMundus has a good idea, and it would explain the title, "origins," because the song is about the origins of humanity. the opening line "Sensitive heart, you're doomed from the start" could be an allusion to the concept of original sin, which is, according to Christian beliefs, the sin all people are born with due to Adam and Eve's betrayal.

Yeah, this song is pretty biblical. Far cry from Tennis's earlier work, but more ambitious.

General CommentBefore coming on this site and looking at others' views, I kind of thought this song was about Tennis' decision to sell off all their material things and set sail across the ocean for 8 months. I also got some of the lyrics wrong so i thought that Alaina Moore was singing to her husband Patrick will you have my babies, or bear my babies. also the senstive heart lyric i can relate to. im doomed. now i see i am wrong. still a killer song with beautiful lyrics and as always, alaina's vocals kill it. shes like a better Madeline Follin from Cults

Song MeaningA little insight from the artist: "I thought about how the suddenness of becoming a band and spending so much time on the road with others seemed to bring out the best and the worst in me. I thought a lot about human nature -- mine really, and the way it had been portrayed to me in my childhood. I felt frustrated with the self-defeating conception of humanity I was presented with. So when Patrick wrote the music for the song 'Origins,' I decided to take it as an opportunity to flesh out this inner dialogue." -- Singer Alaina Moore

And I definitely agree that the referential parallels to the original sin are a little too uncanny to deny.